L.A. Prepares for the Big Quake Amid the Questions of When and How Large - Is your city prepared

 My promise in the beginning was not to use scare tactics and to try to make things bite sized for you to prepare for disasters in Where to Start. 
This week I read with interest how  Los Angeles has begun to look at the pieces in the public forum so their citizens understand it. They have been planning for a long time, but articles like this one show you the citizen the types of things they are worried about and planning for.
LA Prepares for the Big Quake Amid Questions of When and How Large  Its long (more than 30 seconds) but worth the time to read it all.

Why do I think its important citizens read this? Really two reasons:  
1.  Honestly, most of what we do in emergency management is not recognized by the public as it seldom produces perceptible results to the public in the short term.  But it does produce things that may save lives in the long term.  Pay attention to the discussions of water and transport in the article.  Pay attention as your government makes budget cuts, if the Emergency Managers are on that cut list you WILL have a harder time surviving and recovering from a catastrophic event. 

 2.   If you read this piece and pay attention to the main points they are making you can look at your planning and say okay I need to do a little more in that category, and that one looks good for now. But you are conscience of the need, and that makes it more focused.

And if you read this and think, okay I have put this off long enough- awesome. Start here and dig in, a little at a time, planning takes time.

Good Planning
Disaster_Dave




 

Its times like this that things look different

For those of us in the Seattle area it has been a long two weeks, with the slide in Oso Washington touching all of us in some way.  But once we step back from the response and take a day off and look at our beautiful area, I tend to take the beauty at face value, but under the beautiful hillside is...    Don't get me wrong your local public servants in emergency management take this personally, we spend our time trying to educate you and our elected officials to the dangers in our beautiful state.
The things that make our state and region beautiful are some of the same things that can in the least make life hard or even kill you.  A fellow emergency manager, Eric Holdeman wrote a great piece this week on why you won't listen entitled Living with Risk: but don't you love the views . You should read it and decide which one you are.
I know there hasn't been a major earthquake here in your life time, but your life time is not the measuring stick of when a quake will strike, but it could end your life.  Sorry I digress.

Lets just assume you fall into one of the categories in Eric's article and be done with it.  So if you  are determined to live on the side of a hill, or a few feet from the ocean, or in a high rise, at least do a few things to up the odds in case you are wrong.

Look for things you can do to minimize danger.
You live on or under a hillside:

• Pay attention to the weather - more rain = more chance of a slide
• Get involved in the community make sure the politicians are aware that you are aware
• Seek a professional on putting plants that will hold the ground and drink water
• do some internet research on your home area

You live on the ocean/sound:

• Have an emergency radio turned on and turned up loud
• Learn about Tsunamis and what your danger level is
• Pay attention to King Tides tables

 You live on a river:

• Have an emergency radio turned on and turned up loud
• Learn about the threat to your home
• Search for your county name flood warning and save that site

Because it can happen here
prayers for those lost in Oso and their families
disaster_dave 

What if your disaster gets out classed (or people forget)

What happens if you are in the process of recovering from your disaster and a larger (more sexy) disaster occurs?

I was in the Philippines recently deployed as a volunteer response team member  for ShelterBox.  I was assigned a mission to do follow up from the Bohol 7.1 earthquake, which got upstaged by Typhoon Yolanda. The Philippines largest Earthquake in 23 years upstaged by the strongest Typhoon ever.
Many of the people of Bohol that I talked with felt that after only three weeks the aid agencies left for the bigger (sexier) disaster. 

In defense of the aid agencies the death toll was 200 vs 6000+ dead and they didn't leave, they moved appropriate (in most cases) assets to the bigger event.

So how do you keep the focus on your disaster? Maybe you can't; but you can prepare to do what you can.

Have a plan before it happens, have the players ready to begin recovery as soon as something happens.
Have the political players in the loop early to keep the focus on your event.
Have your Public Affairs folks working to keep getting the message out, covering the local response angle.

Try this test. Write down places and events that are disasters right now.  Then go to one of the international aid groups and see where they are? What are they doing? Did you realize that happened? Was on going? People were suffering?

Now imagine that is your disaster and most people have forgotten about it?

DisasterDave

It's an hour after a disaster; do you know where your children are?

In November 2013 FEMA in partnership with Department of Health & Human Service and the Red Cross and several other organizations released Post Disaster Reunification of Children: A Nationwide Approach.

This document listed lots of roles (responsibility's) for  local, State, Federal governments and Non Profit partners in caring for and reuniting children with their families after a disaster.  They did not assign any "roles" to the parents.  The intent of the document is to make sure everything is done to accomplish that, but it starts with you the parent. You don't have to read it, but if you wish you can find it at the hyperlink above. 
Having had unaccompanied minors show up at a shelter is not a good feeling, it is a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.  So what can you do so the government doesn't have to do anything or at least make their job easier.

1. Have a family disaster plan. I have written about this before and it is where everything starts. As the report points out, not only have a plan but "child reunification cards" a simple card with contact info (including an out of area contact) and places to meet.
2. Talk to your child care facility and/or schools. What are their plans? Ask to see them? Make sure ALL of your contact info is on file with the school/child care facility. 

3. Know your children's friends family's (an extension of know your neighbors). 

4. What is your local emergency managements plan for reunification? Remember the "roles" I talked about? Ask some questions.
 
5. Do you have a medical care waiver signed at your son's school or child care facility?
Read up on HIPAA and FERPA so you are informed, both of these are designed to protect privacy but are often misquoted and/or misunderstood.  

6. Always heed warnings from local emergency managers or  the weatherman. Make sure everyone leaves home prepared as possible for the day.  This may not seem like part of the plan, but it is!
 
7. And of course please do talk to your children (and spouse, parents, etc) about disasters and the planning you have taken to make sure everyone is safe.
This is one New Years item to take care of soonest.

DisasterDave

Cookies never suck

The title stems from a conversation I had a couple of years ago with like-minded Emergency Managers from around the world enrolled in the Emergency Management Academy. An endeavor that had me read a large volume of emergency management books over the course of a year, along with being involved in great conversations weekly with my fellow Fellows.

The gist of the conversation was appreciation of the people running the disaster response and recovery.  Not the first responders (who you should thank) but the Emergency Management Team behind the scenes coordinating the response, who almost never get thanked in a public way.  So as you go into your next disaster; regardless of whether it is a tornado, hurricane, quake or mass shooting remember there is a man or woman behind the curtain.  They do everything from coordinating the response, to helping move things along in the recovery phase.  And if they did everything right your disaster experience was probably better than it would have been without their daily planning.

So search out the location of your local Emergency management office, bake some cookies and deliver them to the EOC with your thanks.  You will make some tired emergency managers day, because cookies never suck.

Disasterdave